4 Dangerously Influential Dimwits

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. That's a popular belief that pervades society these days and is born of a curious and unearned entitlement, sort of like the way we all think a bus shouldn't have urine on it, but of course it does. It's also terribly untrue due to its lack of completeness. Everyone can have an opinion, but you have to be ready to accept that it may be wrong and misguided and in need of correction. That's not an opinion. That's a stone cold sexy fact.

Unfortunately, too many people have beliefs that are rigid and not open to change. Like trying to pee with a boner, they are difficult to manage and can be disastrous when forced in another direction. No one likes to hear that the things they strongly believe are wrong, but it's a disservice to all of us if we can't be open to the idea that we are wrong, and open to learning something new. And while it's true that no one is right all the time and no one knows everything, that's natural. What's unnatural are those people who have been elevated to a position of authority, rightly or wrongly, who use their power and influence to spread their wrongheaded beliefs, not just to the benefit of ignorance, but to the dangerous detriment of those who believe them. Basically I mean assholes who spread bullshit. Follow along!

#4. Sylvia Browne

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Sylvia Browne, world-renowned fake psychic and perennial runner-up in ogress beauty pageants, has had a long, lurid career of stringent bullshit, foul deception and money-grubbing assholery. Many people have tried to expose her fraudulent ways, but those who want to believe hold fast to their ignorance in a way that is both aggravating and sad. Like a dog that refuses to stop eating poop, they consume what she tosses out like it's delicious, cruddy ambrosia.

While proponents can argue that it does no harm to believe Goblin Browne's ranting if she gives comfort to people who have lost loved ones, you really must question all the times that she's been caught in outright, terrible, despicable and stomach-turning lies.

Sylvia Browne predicted that MS would be cured in 2012. The common cold would be cured in 2010. Obama would not be re-elected. There would be a tsunami in Florida this fall. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie will break up. She has predicted that for four straight years. There are lots of lists of her failed predictions to peruse, but that's harmless, right? She's like your loopy aunt who drinks too much schnapps and tells you what a big boy you've become when her hand is on your inner thigh. It's not right, but it's technically not too bad.

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Got $20? I'll show ya how auntie makes a beer bottle disappear.

Here's the part of my research where I Googled Holly Krewson. Opal Jo Jennings. Lynda McClelland. All people who had gone missing. All people whose desperate families had been told by Browne that they were abducted and taken somewhere else. All people who were actually murdered. What a shitty shitbag Sylvia Browne is for giving false hope to families. Imagine losing someone you care for, the pain and anguish of wondering if they are being hurt or if they're dead. Then to be told by someone you trust that they're alive. Then to have that rug pulled out from under you by reality. Fuck. Browne told one of those families that their loved one had been sold into slavery in Japan. In reality, she'd been killed only hours after disappearing.

Sylvia Browne is a soulless toilet bug who just wants your money and charges hundreds and thousands of dollars to tell people shit she's obviously just making up. She'll even diagnose your medical problems on the spot and argue with you when you don't agree with her assessment of your own personal health. The potential repercussions are mind-boggling in their ridiculousness. Because really, taking medical advice from someone who looks like Sylvia Browne is like taking wanking tips from Captain Hook.

#3. Jenny McCarthy

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Jenny McCarthy got famous for showing her tits and making farting sounds, which is how I wanted to get famous. But I failed miserably, so maybe this entry is tainted with jealousy. Once that shtick ran its course and she became a parent, McCarthy apparently got into the bottle of pills marked "bwaagah laahagah wha!" and downed every last one with a glass of Scotch to hop on a one-way train to Crazy Town, Vaccination Station.

McCarthy currently champions the anti-vaccine movement. After her son was diagnosed with autism, McCarthy went on a crusade to "educate" others about the link between vaccines and autism. To save you the time of reading into the subject, I will let you know that there is no real link between vaccines and autism. Look at this helpful and hilariously grim website for many, many details on why her beliefs are crazy like a fox hopped up on peyote if you'd like to know more.

While it's awesome if McCarthy wants to ignore science and believe unhelpful things, when she starts going on talk shows and writing books to let other people know why they shouldn't vaccinate their children against lethal diseases, that becomes an issue. The number of parents opting out of vaccines has steadily increased since McCarthy and those like her started making public appeals, while the total lack of any real autism cases linked to vaccines has remained the same.

Like with climate change, there are a handful of "experts" who claim that they know the real truth (which no credible people believe), as though the vast majority of doctors and scientists around the world were conspiring to be evil. Because that's why they all got Ph.D.s in the first place -- just to dupe the common man into believing some bullshit so they could then gather at the Nobel Prize gathering and high-five each other for playing y'all like suckas.